By Muhammadu Abubakar, Sokoto
Over 30,000 small scale entrepreneurs in Sokoto State are to benefit from a N30 billion loan under the Federal Government’s Entrepreneurship Empowerment Programme (GEEP).
The State Coordinator of the programme, Alhaji Lawalli Kebbe who disclosed this yesterday in Sokoto said that bank accounts had been opened for the beneficiaries most of them farmers.
“The GEEP loan package is one of the components of the federal government’s social intervention programme in the country.
“The beneficiaries would be both male and female, self proprietors of businesses under the aegis of various trade associations registered by the State Small and Medium Enterprises Development Agency and the state Ministry of Women and Children Affairs.
“Each of the beneficiaries would be given a soft loan of N100, 000 to be disbursed through commercial banks.
“Already, the state government had opened accounts for them with Unity bank, each with N10, 000, amounting to N300 million”, he explained.
According to Kebbe, bank verification numbers had been generated for each of the beneficiaries, adding that the beneficiaries were expected to set up small holder businesses across the 23 local governments of the state.
“This gesture would help in expanding the horizon of businesses across the state and the nation at large.
“It would also further reduce poverty, unemployment, youth restiveness, as well as boost internal revenue generation for the state and federal governments”, he added.
It would be recalled that about 1,429 unemployed graduates in the state benefited from the federal government’s N-Power programme, which was rolled out in 2016.